Targeting Killings Document Bid Rejected by U.S. Judge

By David Glovin -
Jan 2, 2013

Documents concerning the U.S.
government’s so-called targeted killings of alleged terrorists
will remain secret under a federal judge’s ruling denying a
request by the American Civil Liberties and two journalists.

U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon in New York today
turned aside virtually the entire document request from the ACLU
and two New York Times journalists. In rejecting the ACLU’s
“overbroad” request under the Freedom of Information Act and a
“narrower” bid by the journalists, she said the requests
nonetheless “implicate serious issues about the limits on the
power of the executive branch.”

“The Alice-in-Wonderland nature of this pronouncement is
not lost on me,” McMahon wrote in a 75-page opinion. “I can
find no way around the thicket of laws and precedents that
effectively allow the executive branch of our government to
proclaim as perfectly legal certain actions that seem on their
face incompatible with our Constitution and laws.”

As part of the so-called War on Terror, U.S. forces have
pursued members of al-Qaeda and other groups around the world,
in some cases killing individuals by using armed forces or
unpiloted, remote-controlled drones, McMahon said.

“While the decision ultimately concludes that the courts
are powerless to order disclosure,” said David McCraw, the
assistant general counsel at the New York Times, said in a
statement, “we continue to believe that disclosure is required
under FOI. We plan to appeal.”